iPhone 4 packs twice as much RAM as iPad

Multitasking looks to be a whole lot easier on Apple's new phone

Apple looks likely to up the internal power of the iPhone 4 by doubling the amount of RAM to 512MB.

This new figure means the new handset from Apple will be more in line with other phones on the market at the moment and, more importantly, handle multi-tasking with more aplomb.

MacRumors is reporting the new figure for the iPhone 4's innards, which tallies with earlier rumours on the forthcoming iPhone (although not with the prototype teardown photos).

The new figure would mean the iPhone 4 has twice the RAM of the iPad and iPhone 3GS, and four times as much as the iPhone 3G – which means Apple's decision to not allow multitasking on the older phone makes a little more sense.

Spec us up

However, we're still waiting to hear how strong the processor is in the new iPhone 4 – we know it's Apple's A4 chip, the same used in the iPad, but while Jobs made a big deal about how the iPad ran at 1GHz, he made no such claims with the iPhone 4.

This means it's likely the iPhone 4 runs at a slightly lower clock speed, probably in order to save battery, and it will be interesting to see whether this has any bearing on the overall operation.

We're still waiting for more information on iPhone 4 prices from some of the UK networks – but Apple's early pre-order page shows a sky high price for the phones, so at least we can assume there's some decent tech in there.